British clubs beckon but Gosford's a better bet

Sebastian Hassett

The past 48 hours might well mark a seminal moment for football in Australia. It was the first time the public, en masse, drew their pitchforks about a pair of local prospects going to Europe.

Where once the thought of talented Australians going to an English Premier League side and an Old Firm club was cause for celebration, instead fierce debate has ensued. That's big. Why? We're recognising that we can develop our own players on our own shores, to such a point that we might even be better at it than some others abroad.

Let's be frank. Tom Rogic and Mathew Ryan represent two outstanding players with the potential to be great, who have come along at a time when most of us feared the ''next generation'' of Socceroos would be a collection of distinctly underwhelming talents.

To have them taken away from Australia's leading football nursery, the Central Coast Mariners, is seen as a risk the Socceroos can't afford just 18 months from a World Cup.

At the Mariners, they are guaranteed first-team football under the tutelage of Graham Arnold, now rivalling Ange Postecoglou as the A-League's top manager and making a bold push to be the nation's top cultivator of talent.

In less than three years in Gosford, Arnold's record of player management speaks for itself. He has transformed players of all ages - even ageing warhorses such as John Hutchinson, Josh Rose and Daniel McBreen - into something few thought they could become. In Ryan and Rogic, and Mustafa Amini before them, he has handled three raw, precious talents. One feels he can grow them so much more as players, as men, before they leave.

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Contrast that with what Ryan and Rogic were potentially being thrust into - at least until their transfers collapsed in the past two days. Ryan was heading to Rangers, a fourth-tier Scottish club, where it's hard to know what he could learn. It's not as though he'd be breaking a sweat against the quality of attackers he'd be facing. He could also kiss his aspirations of Brazil goodbye.

One can only hope it was a training run designed to familiarise Ryan with a potential move to Rangers in 2016 - the earliest possible time the club will be eligible to enter the Champions League.

Instead, a shoulder injury sustained in Sunday's win over Western Sydney had him yanked off the Heathrow-bound plane on Monday morning. Hopefully his advisers use it as a chance to reflect.

As for Rogic, who nearly joined Reading, it's hard to see how he would have benefited from a relegation dogfight. His technical ability is sublime but his instinctive style needs shaping in a tactically rich environment. A move to Germany or the Netherlands, two countries locked in an arms race of youth development, would prove far more beneficial.

In a couple of years, Rogic might well be ready for the rough-and-tumble of England. But probably not at present, and there's no point blotting his confidence. Right now, he may not see much game time behind a reasonably strong Reading midfield, either, and the breakneck pace of the Championship, where they are likely to play next year, is unlikely to help.

It's not out of the question that he'll stay in Gosford. We're seeing a positive trend of players wanting to establish themselves before leaving and Rogic has, after all, been a professional for barely 12 months.

The public desperately wants him and Ryan to stay because they finally trust our clubs to get it right. That's the moment worth celebrating.